By Paul Brandus – Talk Radio News Service

Metal detectors. Visitors getting wanded. Backpacks and packages carefully screened. It’s awfully nice of the Chinese authorities to lay on all the extra security here at the Beijing Marriott while President Obama is in town.

They say it’s for our protection, we grizzled war correspondents who’ve survived Iraq, Afghanistan and other hellholes. I for one am scared to death here and appreciate the dainty young ladies with white gloves keeping the bad guys out of this plush oasis. Phew!

I sincerely doubt it’s for our benefit. More likely it’s to make it harder for us to conduct interviews with dissidents, rogue Chinese journalists and others who may have something to say that displeases the regime. We can certainly go out and meet these people in other locations, but the tight schedule we’re on makes it logistically very difficult to get away. Easier for them to come to us, hence the watchdogs downstairs. The authorities know how the game is played.

But Big Brother’s not just down in the lobby. He’s right here in room 9055. He’s blocked me from accessing Twitter and Facebook on my laptop (though they haven’t figured out how to keep me from tweeting on my BlackBerry). And even though this sparkling Marriott is high-tech from top to bottom, the phone on the desk makes some strange clicks whenever I make a call. Maybe it’s nothing, but it reminds me of trying to make phone calls when I worked in the Soviet Union during the bad old days of the KGB.

Indeed, China’s version of the KGB – which, by the way, I can’t seem to research on Google – has apparently been busy clamping down both before and during Obama’s visit. Agence France Presse reported earlier this week that authorities rounded up several dissidents and activists, fearing they could embarrass the leadership.

One person rounded up, says AFP, was a man named Zhao Lianhai, leader of an activist group of parents whose children were allegedly sickened by tainted milk. Zhao’s wife says he was “criminally detained for ‘provoking an incident’.” Another activist group, Human Rights in China, claims Zhao was handcuffed and taken away last week by police officers who also seized computers, a video camera and an address book.

Obama himself has made things easier for the authorities. He hasn’t met anyone who wasn’t prescreened. No free press advocates, no human rights groups, no political opposition. What about Tuesday’s “town hall” in Shanghai? Every student was carefully vetted for their reliability and prepped on how to behave.

Even worse, the White House advance team considered, but rejected a meeting with political activists, only to drop it from the schedule due to time constraints, reports the New York Times. Yet Obama found time yesterday to stroll through the Forbidden City and today visits the Great Wall of China.

It’s the first time an American President has tacitly agreed to be muzzled here. In 1998, President Clinton went on state-run TV and angered his Chinese hosts by discussing human rights, the Dalai Lama and the still-taboo bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square. In 2002, President Bush talked about the importance of personal freedom and the rule of law. But for Obama’s visit, the White House didn’t insist on a national platform for the President, and the Chinese never offered him one.

Paul Brandus filed this report from Beijing

By Meagan Wiseley – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

President Obama’s inaugural visit to Asia was postponed due to the his and First Lady Michelle Obama’s participation in the memorial service on Tuesday for those killed in the Fort Hood tragedy.

Still, the President intends to tell Asian countries when he visits later this week that the U.S. is engaged and committed to strengthening alliances with Asia and helping Asian nations achieve prosperity and security, according to Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications.

Jeffrey Bader, Senior Director for East Asian Affairs for the National Security Council, said that the President plans to raise the issue of human rights while in China.

“I think the kinds of issues that are on our minds are the freedom of expression, access to information…and certainly Tibet. I have every reason to believe that the issue of Tibet will come up on the trip,” Bader said.

Bader did not foresee discussions with the Japanese government on the realignment of Futenma Air Base, which houses 47,000 U.S. military personnel on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. The base is set to relocate to a smaller facility in 2014.

“I don’t see the Okinawa base issue being a dominant or essential issue on this visit,” Bader said. “The new Japanese government is reviewing how it wishes to move forward on [the base issue].”

The President is scheduled to leave for Japan on Thursday, followed by visits to Singapore, China and South Korea.

By Leah Valencia – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

In Barcelona, policy makers are awaiting a commitment from the U.S. to cut greenhouse gas emissions during preliminary agreements being made ahead of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen next month.

Nick Mabey, CEO of E3G, a nonprofit think tank that promotes green solutions, said Monday that key players have began to advocate ambitious commitments, noting that China and India have discussed lofty international abatement commitments. Mabey said that all that remains is a commitment from the U.S to reduce emissions.

“With the major countries moving on finance and on commitment, this really sets up for the EU-US summit…to see the U.S. come forward and make a very positive statement about its intentions,” Mabey said during a conference call hosted by the U.S. Climate Action Network.

The U.S., which is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world – China is the largest – has yet to commit to a goal to reduce emissions by 2020. This has made it difficult to gain commitments from other developing countries. In contrast the European Union has vowed to cut 1990-level emissions by 20 percent in the next decade.

“The principle for supporting developing countries is committing to finance, as Europe has, and a strong agreement that we can build on in the future,” Mabey said. “This is really an important time where U.S. leadership has to come to the full.”

The current preliminary discussions taking place in Barcelona represent the final negotiating sessions before the United Nations meets in Copenhagen on Dec. 6 for the EU-US climate conference. There, 190 nations will draft an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Former EPA climate change policy director David Doniger says that U.S. energy policy must be preemptive and ambitious, starting slowly, but with major emission reductions by 2050.
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Barbara Finamore of the Natural Resources Defense Council says the United States is in a great position, if ready, to take advantage of China’s new green technology market.
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By Julianne LaJeunesse- University of New Mexico

Experts at a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholar’s forum Friday said that if China is given adequate financial and political support, the country could go from being one of the world’s biggest polluters, to one that produces more green technology using less environmentally unfriendly energy.

Barbara Finamore, the director of the China program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, made it clear that China’s capacity to create green technology with better uses of energy would not be a “Sputnik race,” rather every country would benefit from investing in a clean-up of China’s energy use.

“This is a race where the opening up of the Chinese domestic market for renewable energy is also a major opportunity for U.S. companies to that are well-positioned… to take advantage of it and understand it,” Finamore said.

Finamore, who just returned from China, said in order for China to become more environmentally accepted in the international community, cleaning up their energy consumption must occur provincially.

“What we’ve been able to do… is work in the pilot project level,” Finamore said. “That’s where the rubber meets the road, that’s where you need to make a difference if you’re really going to be able to achieve whatever climate agreements China makes. But we also help to translate them into national policy… in both China and the U.S. and into international policy.”

The pilot project level Finamore referred to is a province-based test run of energy standard implementation, which if successful, could change national policy because, according to Finamore, China’s pricing bureau “is never going to agree to open up the regulatory system for collecting electricity rates to energy efficiency, unless they’re sure these programs already work on the ground.”

David Doniger, a senior attorney and policy director also from NRDC said that it’s in both the United States and China’s interest to agree on a method of halting negative energy consumption that causes global warming via carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, or GHG.

Doniger noted that some American and international concerns regarding China’s emissions, are relevant, including tensions regarding proposed methods to control emissions, such as: border adjustments, allowances and leakage.

He added that U.S. Cap-and-Trade legislation like the House’s Waxman-Markey and the Senate’s Kerry-Boxer bills should not be seen by China as part of a broader U.S. trade agenda, rather as a legitimate method the United States is using to change its relationship with the environment.

Doniger and Finamore were joined by Lynn Price of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, a group who in 2007 won a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change.

Robert Kiener, Director of Member Outreach at the Precision Machined Products Association, says in a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing Friday that if manufacturers can not acquire the capital they need for employees, equipment and raw materials due to the credit crisis, consumers will be forced to outsource from overseas. (0:30)

 

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Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says exiled Tibetan Dalai Lama’s rule has shown humility and kindness that is inspirational and fatherlike. (01:01)

 

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The 14th Dalai Lama says U.S. weapons are powerful but not as powerful as American principles. (0:26)

 

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by Julianne LaJeunesse- University of New Mexico

The 14th Dalai Lama was in Washington, D.C. Tuesday to receive a Lantos Foundation award for his human rights service, and despite a missing President Obama, the religious leader still offered kind words and advice for “America… the greatest democratic country.”

“I think American weapons, military forces, of course, is to some people… you can take seriously,” the Dalai Lama said. “But the real greatness of America is your ancestors, or the principles. These are, at any cost, you must preserve these principles. That is important.”

Some of those principles could be in question with the Obama administration’s decision not to receive the Dalai Lama this week. The White House says Obama will meet with the leader after a November session with China’s President Hu Jintao in Beijing, a decision which the Dalai Lama says he understands.

At the Lantos Foundation ceremony, which was created to further late Rep. Tom Lantos’ work on human rights and justice issues within U.S. policy making, John McCain (R- Ariz.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) praised the work of both Lantos, who died in 2008, and the Dalai Lama’s humanitarian efforts. McCain called the Dalai Lama “an example of a moral leader.”

McCain called the Dalai Lama, who won the Noble Peace Prize in 1989, a father to Tibet, despite the tensions between the exiled ruler and the Chinese government.

“For over half a century, he has led their struggle, petitioning governments and people of conscience throughout the world to lend their voice to the just demands of Tibetans,” McCain said. “He has endured the long trying years, and every setback for their cause, with an unyielding determination that is singular because of the patience, humility, and kindness that are his most admirable qualities.”

If Obama and the exiled leader don’t meet this year, it will mark the first time in 14 years that a U.S. president has not received the Dalai Lama. In 2007, the Dalai Lama received the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, a ceremony attended by President George W. Bush.